COLFO says the influence of Jevon McSkimming over vetting firearm license applicants shows that Police invent their own approach to deciding whether licensees are “fit and proper” – another reason why licensing should be removed from Police.

Internal emails acquired by media have shown that as Deputy Police Commissioner McSkimming followed up a complaint from a friend by instigating an end to the Police policy that Officers could remove or deny firearm licenses if owners had driving infringements.

COLFO spokesperson Hugh Devereux-Mack says the policy change illustrates that Police vetting is highly dependent on the widely varying quality Police staff and does not follow clear and constant rules.

“The fact that McSkimming could change the vetting policy so easily illustrates its susceptibility to corruption, inconsistency and judgementalism.

“The wrong person made the right change to the policy for the wrong reason. The change reveals that Police were never confident in the policy in the first place, and all it took was just one well-placed complaint to highlight the problematic policy.

“The rules for being a fit and proper licensed firearm owner (LFO) should be set in regulation, and removed from Police, to prevent this type of variability and influence,” Devereux-Mack says.

The current Firearms Act says Police can use any other matter the Officer deems appropriate when judging fitness of an applicant or holder of a firearms license.

The emails reveal that rather than Officers deeming matters appropriate to each circumstance, Police set internal policy on factors they all regularly use against applicants.

Devereux-Mack says using traffic infringements against LFOs was a very contentious policy, and the cause of many licensing complaints from the firearm community.

“Using traffic infringements to deny licenses led to many injustices that increased distrust of Police, and did not improve firearm safety,” he says.

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